


Reenactors, Chapter 7

by SirJosephBanksFRS



Series: Reenactors [7]
Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 12:11:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirJosephBanksFRS/pseuds/SirJosephBanksFRS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the outset of the engagement between the <i>Shannon</i> and <i>Chesapeake</i>, Jack and Stephen find themselves inexplicably on the deck of <i>USS Constitution</i> in Boston two hundred years in the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reenactors, Chapter 7

_**17 June 2013   Tuesday** _

_**I have recovered sufficiently from a minor mishap with a bus that I may write. Friday evening, the fourteenth, I was struck by a very large carriage whilst crossing the street and was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital, apparently one of the very best hospitals in the world. To my great unhappiness, I was unconscious during the most significant period of treatment and therefore missed seeing firsthand some of the astounding innovations that have happened in physic in the last two hundred years. Jack was so disturbed by what had happened that he could not provide an account of any significant detail.** _

_**In any case, I awoke in hospital with a collection of flexible yet stiff clear glass-like hoses inserted into my body, including one in my nose, in my arm that somehow entered through my skin and into a vein, and one inserted up through my**_ **membrum virile** _**to be indwelling within my bladder to collect urine. None of them occasioned any pain and Jack told me there had been one in my mouth as well that had something to do with breathing. I saw these tubes removed from me the next day. I had hoped to bring them with me but the nurse looked at me most strangely, placing them in a large closed container marked "Biohazard: Medical Waste."** _

_**All of these tubes and other medical devices are made from a substance called "plastic," one of the most utterly fantastic inventions of the modern age, a development beyond the discovery of the philosopher’s stone or any alchemical achievement by Flamel or Paracelsus. It is truly more amazing than the development of porcelain by the Chinese, more incredible than gunpowder or virtually any invention that I can think of in chemical terms. This substance, far more valuable than any alchemist's transubstantiation of lead into gold, is now ubiquitous. The name refers to the quality it possesses of being able to made into so many different forms and its flexibility. It may be soft and fragile as the finest silk or hard as steel, transparent or opaque, light as sea foam or dense as granite. There is plastic that appears nearly identical to wood, to porcelain, to glass, to leather, to silk, to wool, to metal, to stone, to ceramic, to shell, to horn, to ivory and many, many more substances, more than I could ever name. A modern American cannot go one day without touching plastic, it is quite impossible, for the home is filled with plastic, their coaches are made of it, their clothes are made of it, it is everywhere. It is apparently inexpensive as well and hence its ubiquity.** _

_**The relative low cost of this "plastic" also in part explains the profusion of material goods that all people now seem to believe essential to their existence. They have thousands of objects and inventions now that we never knew and never felt the need for, most of them being made of plastic. This necessity for formerly unknown objects is no better exemplified than by my trip to the emporium called the CVS where I bought Jack a razor with which to shave. There were dozens to choose from and I took one with the words “Gillette Fusion,” which was relatively expensive and therefore I hoped of good quality.** _

_**Jack is entirely entranced with the development of this ridiculous razor, saying that it exemplifies the genius of modern man, having five cutting edges yet being extremely difficult to cut one’s skin with and with the shaving soap. He happily shaves himself in the so-called "shower bath" and revels in bathing daily, which I have attempted to discourage and have told him will damage his skin and may cause him to contract some illness, as it is not salubrious seawater but smells strongly of some noxious chemical I cannot identify which is added to the water. He ignores me and does as he pleases. I have shaved myself with this Gillette razor and he has shaved me and I do not share his consummate joy in shaving, though I will confess it is far easier and safer than a straight razor, though it is absurdly wasteful that each razor is what is called “disposable.” Not disposable in the sense that we use the word, to mean that which may be done without, but disposable meaning it is to be discarded after a very short period of use, in some instances after only one incident of use.** _

_**Jack and I had no idea of it at first, what this was, this “disposability” or what it even it meant. It is extremely difficult to even explain. In our time, if we received a message on paper and we did not want to keep it, we would put it in the fireplace, though most people would save the paper to write on the back of it, if there was any clean space, paper being so dear. We also had a dustbin for minor bits of household detritus, such as broken crockery. In general, dirt was swept out onto the street. But this broken crockery was taken away by the dustman or ashman in the city, usually the building owner arranged it every three to six months or so, the ashman coming to collect ashes and cinders regularly. Of course, people also threw human waste out onto the street all too frequently, though many physicians have attempted to educate municipal authorities to alter this dangerously unhealthful practice. But in any case, we had very little materially and things were generally repaired and used, given away or sold or resold until they were of absolutely no utility and then they would be burned or the dustman took the very little that was left. In the country, this minimal residue detritus would occasionally be buried at the edge of a property. Food scraps would be fed to the dogs or collected for the feeding of swine or put in a garden pit. There was very little of what we conceived of as “waste,” in the sense of something of utterly no utility to be discarded. Nails would be recovered to be re-smelted from ashes of structures that had burned. Even human waste serves an indirect purpose of fertilization of the ground when discarded into a privy.** _

_**No one burns anything now, it would seem. Instead, everyone has large dustbins in their homes that are lined with sacks made from very thin sheets of plastic. They put discards in these sacks and then the sacks are put outside in larger dustbins at the kerb. Men come with a gigantic machine coaches and take them away somewhere, I know not where. Everything goes in these sacks, absolutely everything that will fit. That which will not fit is put atop or to the side.** _

_**These people have material belongings beyond any conception that Jack or I could possibly have, a home easily having thousands of individual types of items and the owners use them and put them in the dustbin when they have been used or are broken or if they tire of them, so it would seem. It is not uncommon at all for material objects of no apparent defect to be placed in or atop dustbins to be taken away by the dustman. The amount generated is so great that the men in the carriage come twice weekly to take it away from mammoth containers larger than the largest washing tub, the size of a extremely large trunk, on the street. There is everything in these bags -- food, machines, clothing, soiled diapers, paper and plastic sheeting that things were wrapped in, containers that food was purchased in, everything in the society. It seems to me entirely wasteful, exorbitantly and almost criminally wasteful. This is waste on a scale of all of the material goods of entire nations of our time discarded in a single day; more waste created by one person in one street dustbin than in an entire lifetime in our time, with this material being taken away and as I was told “thrown away,” wherever “away” may be. But I know little of the world these days. They also have something they call “recycling” which is a smaller open box with some kinds of glass, paper and plastic in it which is taken somewhere and made into something else, I gather.** _

_**In addition to that which is disposed of because it is broken or worn out, there are objects created with the idea of being used once and then “disposed of”, being put in the dustbin and these objects are called “disposable.” The medical devices I saw in the hospital are used once and discarded to prevent the transmission of disease. I have also seen “disposable” plates, cutlery, glasses, cups, handkerchiefs, tablecloths, serving dishes, pots and pans, napkins and towels, bottles, cans, jars, bags, clothing, and razors. The amount of paper created and thrown out in one day in Boston seems to surpass the amount that was used in all of the United Kingdom over a decade in our time. Other artifacts are not described as being disposable but are in fact usable only once and then discarded, such as silver discs that are used in computing machines to have information “written” on them and are then discarded when the information is no longer useful. The concept of buying something once and using it over and over for one’s entire life or until it is so diminished that it cannot be used is apparently itself obsolete. Nothing is repaired with the exception of extremely large and expensive goods, such as motor carriages. This would seem to indicate as well that labor is very dear and material goods extremely inexpensive, the opposite of our times.** _

_**To think a London barber would have one straight razor and use it on twenty gentlemen a day for twenty years and never throw it out, simply sharpening it on a razor strop as needed -- this "Fusion" razor has five blades which get thrown in the dustbin when they are dull, which is after being used perhaps four or five times, depending on the beard of the gentleman who owns it. There is no mechanism to sharpen the blades, it is quite impossible. This razor is relatively expensive but much less dear than regularly going to a barber and being shaved, something that apparently virtually no one does now, except for a very special occasion, perhaps on a wedding day. I confess that I myself have not been to a barber in the seventeen days we have been here and I have no idea if barbers, too, use disposable razors. I suppose the razor again falls in the category of the labor saving device that it is less expensive to buy than to a pay someone to do the equivalent and being clean shaven in within reach of all now, as opposed to being limited to the gentry of our time, as the mark of a gentleman was being immaculately groomed. Jack would never go a day without shaving on land if it were within his power and despaired of me and my slovenly ways.** _

_**It is amusing that in general, people now take a gentleman having long hair as a sign of rebellious tendencies against the established social order and that short hair is the mark of conformity and support of the established social order. I thank God Jack has not heard this, for he would have his queue shorn immediately; no one here has ever heard, apparently, that long hair was the mark of aristocrats and the Cavaliers and those with shorn hair were the levellers, the diggers and Fifth monarchists, among others, the revolutionaries who sought to tear down the aristocracy. As it is, no one ever looks at our hair, one way or the other. I shall have to have my hair cut soon, it is getting rather long and unruly. I suppose it does not matter, since I have no wig to wear, but I prefer to have it short in any case. Jack is fortunate that his queue excites no comment or notice whatever, it grows longer still and he wears it tightly braided except when he goes to bed, as I have advised him to wear it loose to increase the blood flow around his scalp and he does.** _

_**Today was the celebration of the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, which took place in 1775. The entire neighbourhood was most festive and it is apparently a holiday in much of Massachusetts. Charlestown was historically an Irish neighbourhood in Boston long in the past but it still retains many Irish establishments such as the two different Sullivan’s pubs, Sullivan’s on Main Street and Old Sully’s on Union Street, relatively close by.** _

_**I went to Sullivan's today to meet with Raymond Donahue. Somehow, my money and documents disappeared in the aftermath of my accident with the bus. Luckily, Mr. Donahue could replace them easily. He pitied me when he heard what had happened and made a present of another green card and birth certificate to me. He is the owner of a print shop in South Boston and thus his ability to provide very faithful forgeries of governmental documents. He is a friendly man who is good at making conversation that gives little away. He talked at length about his father, a retired constable who is ill. His father emigrated to America from Belfast in the early 1970s.** _

_**I had a most unfortunate run-in with Martin O'Shea, the barkeeper. He is from Dublin, has lived in Boston for forty-five years and is an American citizen. He is very closed mouthed, with a marked tendency to be suspicious. He is apparently very well-connected to the Irish community of Boston. He lives in South Boston and has known Katharine since she was a baby, was friends with her father. Katharine says he knows every politician in Boston, they all come to seek his blessing, at least the Democrats, in any case. He looked at me quite strangely and could tell Jack was English before he even spoke a word. He has an extreme hatred for the English, as I learned today. I do not know enough contemporary Irish history to know if his sentiments are historical or personal. It was fortunate that Jack was not with me, given that he has Mondays off from the ship. I had gone to Sullivan’s to meet Raymond for just a few minutes and had left him at home resting. I was not pleased at all with my response to the great offense given me, but he is an old man and a fool and what am I to do in this time and place? I dare not risk any action that could lead to arrest and in any case, as I remonstrated Jack, it would teach him nothing. I do not know how a modern man of honour comports himself in the face of such intentional offense. It is a mystery to me.** _

_**There is a peculiar irony about being in my situation and being lectured for being young and ignorant and conversely hearing about what people in the past and “old people” are and were like. I wonder how many times I have said similar things.** _

Stephen had gone to Sullivan’s on Main Street to meet Raymond Donohue. They each had a Harp and chatted about Raymond’s father, a retired constable who had emigrated from Belfast in the 1970s. Raymond’s father had poor health, having, as he told Stephen, a condition known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. When Raymond left, Martin, the bartender called to Stephen from across the bar in Irish. Stephen went closer to hear him over the music, which he supposed was Irish music but sounded like no Irish music he had ever known.

“FitzGerald,” Martin said and Stephen noticed his eyes were narrowed, “don’t you ever bring that fucking Limey bastard into my place again.” Stephen said nothing. “Did you hear me?”

“Sure I did.” Stephen said coldly.

“You young people apparently have no memory for what your own people have gone through. I never thought I should see the day that a son of Connacht would have a goddamned _Sasanach_ for his dearest friend.” Martin said, spitting out the word “friend.” Stephen's hand reflexively went to his belt where he touched nothing. He clenched and unclenched his fists and stared at Martin, his eyes narrowing and getting colder with each second that went by. His voice was very low when he finally spoke, so low that Martin leaned forward to hear him through Stephen's clenched teeth.

“Well, the Dear knows no Irishman has ever been a poor friend to a fellow Irishman. No Irishman has ever betrayed another Irishman.” Stephen said. “Tis not like Dublin Castle had all the information they needed from Irishmen themselves in the uprising of '98. It is not like my cousin, Lord Edward FitzGerald, was betrayed by a Judas of an Irishman, a respected Roman Catholic barrister named Francis Magan who received his two hundred pounds a year in blood money from the Crown for the next forty-five years as an annuity, in league with that miscreant and despicable "Sham Squire" Francis Higgins, who received his thousand pounds in lieu of thirty shekels for his treachery. Nor was it the case that there were so many informers and traitors that the Castle had more information than the English knew what to do with. Thomas Reynolds and Jemmy O’Brien, Conway, Smythe, Carroll, Conlan, Corrigan and far too many more for me to name all the scum that was toadying to Major Sirr -- how many more of those fine fellows were responsible for hurtling Ireland towards the Act of Union, for putting her further under the thumb of Great Britain for the next hundred and sixteen years?" Martin was staring at Stephen, his mouth open. "Wexford matched and then surpassed the English for their brutality. They burned them alive in Scullabogue and in Wexford town, they marched them onto the bridge and piked defenseless men, their own countrymen to death, bringing onto Wexford as a whole the same wrath as Cromwell's conquest in 1649. You are a prating blockhead, Martin O'Shea and I do not suffer you to presume to instruct me on the history of Ireland. It is certainly not the case that the English possess the exclusive rights to ignorance and bigotry. You sicken me and you need have no fear of me ever darkening your door again. Good day, sir.” Stephen said and he turned and left.

  
“Do you want to go to Happy Hour this Friday?” Katharine asked him, as she came to get a book out of the 940s. Stephen was shelving whilst reading _The Informers of 1798_ and thinking in the unlikely event he ever made it back to Dublin before 1843, he would be paying a call on Francis Magan.

“I think not, Katharine. Martin made it abundantly clear that Jack is not welcome.” She grimaced.

“Oh, no. What did he say?

“I cannot repeat his words to a lady but suffice it to say that he told me never to bring Jack into his place again among other choice words." She covered her mouth with her hand and sighed.

“He is old, Stephen.”

“I did not know age was a license for bigotry. Foolishness and senectitude, but not a wholesale license for bigotry. He is not that old.”

“He is almost seventy. He was born in 1946. I'm not saying that as an excuse but as an explanation. People were more bigoted in the past."

"Do not use a universal when you intend a qualifier. Some people, Katharine, some people. Even the majority, but not all. No social progress would ever have been made if such were true. Tis a great sadness that this is the twenty-first century and the worst vices of the human heart are extant still."

"You would argue that is not a true generalization?" He looked away from her.

"Of course, as a generality, but a generality is useless when one comes to speak of individuals. Personally, I have no interest in people as a class; my loyalties, such as they may be, are to private persons alone. I care only for individuals.”

"Stephen, I am very sorry that Martin was so rude to you. I am afraid I am not surprised. He was a long time friend of my father's whom I have known my entire life and he could barely be civil to me when he found out I was marrying an Englishman. He could not bring himself to congratulate me. My father told me that was what would come of my choosing to sleep with the enemy.”

"What infamous churlishness." Stephen said. "I am sorry to hear of it. What a fool. In so many instances it seems that we as a people are our own worst enemy. It was true two hundred and fifteen years ago and it seems true today." She raised an eyebrow. "Now I am a terrible bore lecturing you and I pray that you forgive me, Katharine dear." He said, hoping she would leave him alone in the stacks and hoping that his bad humour was not completely evident. She pulled her books and left him mulling over the correct response of a man of honour to a slight in the twenty-first century as he ground his molars.

 


End file.
